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Sunday, November 21, 2004
Pay AttentionPay Attention was also the subject of a past Email of the Week. Pay Attention is even older than our more popular "Reigning Forever", and, unlike "Reigning Forever" it has not seen much release outside of the CD. (It has come to my attention that "Reigning Forever" has been circulating on the now-defunct Kazaa for the past few years, and has also gotten radio play, albeit at three in the morning.) One of Blunt Ethik's oldest songs, it was re-recorded in 2000, and neither of us remember when we had first penned the lyrics. Mainly because we don't want to remember. The lyrics are shallow and steeped in the adolescent battle-rhyme period which, incidentally, characterized our approach to song-writing when Ep and I had first met. The hook to Pay Attention was my invention, albeit somewhat untrue (what with us having lots of crazy fans; "somewhat untrue" would have to do with how I live in Mississauga, and therefore, not really in T-Dot). Our friend Tay had sent us a beat from Bermuda. We thought it had a lot of potential what with its grimy piano and hissing snares. We brought the instrumental to Anonymous Twist, a talented DJ in Toronto, who made the rhythms of the piano more complex, gave it a grounded bass, and added, one of my favourite things on the album, vinyl scratching of a deeply gruff sample that said "Pay attention, son." Ep and I were both Christians when we recorded this verse, but rap had almost slipped into a calloused language, complete with packaged thoughts and one-directional reasoning; rap has all sorts of references and targets for insult, and it makes one desensitized to what one is really saying. This song is in many ways a project of punchlines; if you listen to Ep's verse, you'll see that each line follows a formula: a set-up, followed by a pun off of an expression. Both immersed with this exercise, we were essentially saying some things that we would feel uncomfortable doing at a church. I'm a little ashamed to admit that I had thought my stance to not swear on my songs was enough. In any case, it was one of our earliest songs and it has it's moments; it's not a piece that we relate to anymore, but, as it stands, as an exercise within a formula, it is still one of our most popular songs. With the realization that it's one of our more popular songs, I feel it's right to make our stance on the matter clear; it's my hope that this song can be taken with a grain of salt. Pay Attention Vocals: 8W, Adrian Fung; epideMIC, Gerald Chan Producers: Tayols; Anonymous Twist Scratching and Mix: Anonymous Twist Album:Lightning Strikes Twice Recorded: 2000 
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